Olympia Snowe: I’m tired of this darned partisan dysfunction

posted at 5:25 pm on February 29, 2012 by Allahpundit

Stick with it at least until 5:20, when Mitchell tries to bait her into dumping on Santorum and the rest of the GOP field for their outrageously outrageous rhetoric. (Snowe declines, aside from some boilerplate about the “big tent.”) The most mystifying bit from the interview:

Snowe said that she is leaving the Senate out of frustration with the gridlock and because she feels she can better be a voice for building consensus outside of the chamber.

“I’m going to be giving my voice to what should change here in the United States Senate, and in Congress, to get things done for the American people,” she said. “People are deeply frustrated. Yes, they’re facing personal financial pains and hardship, but more about the fact that we are not getting things done here in Congress, so that they can look to their political leaders and institutions to solve the problems that they’re facing in their daily lives at this unprecedented moment in American history.”…

“I made the decision not to run for reelection in the United States Senate and to pursue other opportunities outside the Senate, where perhaps I could give voice to the frustrations that exist with the political system here in Washington, where it’s dysfunction and the political paralysis has overtaken the environment to the detriment of this country,” Snowe continued, blaming both parties for the “dysfunction.”

It’s the rare senator who remains a major player in national politics after leaving the chamber. Someone like DeMint could pull it off because he has so many admirers among passionate activists, but I can’t imagine how Snowe thinks she’ll have more influence outside the Senate than within. This is what I was getting at in that old post that I re-linked yesterday wondering whether she might leave the GOP and organize a new caucus of independents with fellow centrists like Collins, Lieberman, Brown, Nelson, Manchin, and so forth. If they all quit their parties at once and pulled a move like that, it’d be big news — not only because it would legitimize political independence in a presidential election year even at the highest levels of government but because, if they made a deal to vote as a bloc, they’d could potentially force Reid and McConnell to bend towards the center. There’s almost nothing she could do as an ex-senator that would top that, although if she has something in the works with the Americans Elect people, that might do it. I saw someone mention that possibility on Twitter yesterday; if you read their mission statement, it does sound an awful lot like her exasperated resignation announcement yesterday. Maybe there’s something in the works to pair Snowe with a centrist Democrat — Evan Bayh, maybe? — on a fusion ticket that would add some senatorial credibility to the third-party option this year. The goal wouldn’t be to win (neither Bayh nor Snowe would attract partisans from their respective sides) but to mainstream the idea of a centrist indie presidential option, possibly by even landing a spot at the debates in October. I’m skeptical it’ll happen, but stay tuned.

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By the way, according to basketball-reference, Felton’s PER in NY was 17.3 – so very close to 18.

I know it factors pace, but D’Antoni’s system affects his point-guards production in other ways: it’s a PG-centered offense and it has excellent spacing, which facilitates the job of the primary ball-handler and playmaker. Check Felton’s pace-adjusted per minute stats.

I also think turnovers are the most underrated “stat”. Turnovers are more costly and expensive than generally assumed because intuitively we tend focus on the points a defense scores from the turnover not correcting valuing the offensive opportunity cost — the points it might have scored had the turnover not occurred.

Snowe said that she is leaving the Senate out of frustration with the gridlock and because she feels she can better be a voice for building consensus outside of the chamber.
She’s going to cash in and take a job “advising” some big lobbying firm or go to work on Wall St.

so that they can look to their political leaders and institutions tosolve the problemsthat they’re facing in their daily lives at this unprecedented moment in American history.”…

That’s why we are in this mess as a country you stupid, old hag. Political “leaders” and “institutions” that think they can solve any and every mundane problem in anybody’s life. Leave us the f*ck alone.

Senator Snow is loved in ME. Dems, Republicans and Independents respected her hard work and dedication to her responsibilities. She represented her constituents better than most and she will be missed. All of you right wingers will miss her too….

Sorry if this has been said, didn’t read all the comments, but does she realize her responsibility toward this at any point? Gridlock could have been avoided on numerous occasions if she had behaved the way the base expected her to. I have 4 words for her, Arlen Spector and has been. Roll those around on your forked tongue Olympia my dear.

What this crone doesn’t understand is that when you compromise between life and death there isn’t much to comprise on. She and her evil twin Collins never understood that to compromise on a bad bill when their starting position was already a Demo position was suicide for the R’s.
She was one that ole Harry could ALWAYS count on to defeat the R’s on any bill that required integrity.

But re: Felton, isn’t that sort of the point? Lin’s playing in D’Antoni’s system, so we’re assessing his value inside of that system, not in a vacuum. If he gets traded, you’d have to change all of your predictions about his play going forward.

With TOs, as I said before, I think it’s a trade-off. Most guys with a high TO% are also guys who are great playmakers. You wouldn’t put up with a guy who turns the ball over all the time if he didn’t also create a lot of successful possessions.

Take Irving as an example. He’s got a bit of TO problem, but he’s such a dynamic offensive player that you don’t care as much about his TO%. You hope that he improves as he gets older/more experienced, which tends to happen with PGs.

Well, when one side supports and the Constitution of the USA, and the other side wants to transform it a la the Constitution of the Communist Party USA, then yes, we are not working towards the same goal.

ITguy on February 29, 2012 at 9:30 PM

And if one is working towards building a consensus around a compromise of half a transforming it to the Constitution of the Communist Party USA, then we need to reject the compromise.

If my opponent wants to cut-off both my arms, and I don’t want any of my arms cut-off, then I’m sure as heck going to reject compromise every time.

I seem to remember reading in the Natioanl Review that she voted Obamacare out of committee because Maine got some special treatment with regards to Medicare due to the state being broke. Apparently, she was getting pressure from state politicos back home.

There is speculation that she waited as long as she did to announce so that Democrats would get caught with their pants down and scrambling to bring top tier candidates to this race while she can use her campaign machinery and dollars to anoint her successor. The next couple of days should show if that’s the case or not.

It’s not too obvious (sarc) that Andrea Mitchell has her own agenda and narrative that she wants to spin; ie., blaming the Republicans for their intransigence in “reaching across the aisle.”

Snowe does make the point about how Obamacare was foisted on Congress, but she fails to point out how Reid has failed to shepherd a budget in the Senate for well over 1000 days and to bring to the floor House bills that would meet the needs of the Republic’s economic stall.

Too much credibility is given to bipartisanship just “to get things done.” We do have two parties that represent two different ideologies and philosophies about the role of government in our personal lives. Maybe gridlock is the perfect solution in curbing the federal government’s intrusiveness.

Delusional hags like Snowe will never go away. Their only reason for existing is to create nausea in those she meets. Just another useless RINO seeing the writing on the wall. The establishment RINOs thinking they will miss her just reinforces why they are now the third party.

“I made the decision not to run for reelection in the United States Senate and to pursue other opportunities outside the Senate, where perhaps I could give voice to the frustrations that exist with the political system here in Washington, where it’s dysfunction and the political paralysis has overtaken the environment to the detriment of this country,” Snowe continued, blaming both parties for the “dysfunction.”

Forget it old hag. You’ll never have that voice, because you did a fair share of adding the frustrations to the average citizen. You think it’s all about comity amongst the partis when in truth, you are nothing more than a hired servant of we-the-people, not some nobility able to confer rights to us. Leave, take your ilk and build up a third party of your own, like America Elect.

I can’t imagine how Snowe thinks she’ll have more influence outside the Senate than within.

The Democrat media is always looking to hire liberals.

Perhaps they offered her a $million job in the media and if she works out for them by attacking Republicans and Conservatives that’s fine, if not, paying a lousy $million so a Democrat has a good chance for one of Maine’s Senate seats is chump change.